1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a color photographic processing method and, more particularly, it relates to a method for preventing formation of stain in color photographic images.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
In the processing of a silver halide color photographic material, a step of removing developed silver from the silver halide emulsion layer or layers (the so-called bleaching step) is included, i.e., a step of removing silver images which are simultaneously formed upon development, so as to leave only dye images formed by the reaction between an oxidation product of a color developing agent and a color coupler or couplers. In such step, a bleaching agent (e.g., ferricyanides, iron(III)-amino-polycarboxylic acid complex salts, ferric salts, etc.) are usually used.
Disclosure has been made that the use of ferric salts provides various advantages. In this case, however, when washing or fixing is conducted subsequent to the bleaching step, stains are formed and, sometimes, a very small amount of silver remains. Since such stains and residual silver deteriorate the commercial value of the images finally obtained, removal or prevention of such is desirable.